Sesostris
Sesostris was the name of a legendary king of ancient Egypt who led a military expedition into parts of Europe, as related by Herodotus.
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[edit] Account of Herodotus
Herodotus cited a story told by Egyptian priests about a Pharaoh Sesostris, who once led an army northward through Syria and Turkey all the way to Colchis, westward across Southern Russia, and then south again through Romania, until he reached Bulgaria and the Eastern part of Greece. Sesostris then returned home the same way he came, leaving colonists behind at the Colchian river Phasis. Herodotus cautioned the reader that much of this story came second hand via Egyptian priests, but also noted that the Colchians were commonly known to be Egyptian colonists.[1]
According to Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus (who calls him Sesoösis), and Strabo, he conquered the whole world, even Scythia and Ethiopia, divided Egypt into administrative districts or nomes, was a great law-giver, and introduced a caste system into Egypt and the worship of Serapis.
Herodotus claims Sesostris was the father of the blind king Pheron, who was less warlike than his father.
[edit] Modern research
Sesostris has been considered a compound of Seti I and Ramesses II, kings of the Nineteenth Dynasty. In Manetho, however, a pharaoh called Sesostris occupied the same position as the known pharaoh Senusret II of the Twelfth Dynasty, and his name is now usually viewed as a corruption of Senwosret.[2] Some argue that no Egyptian king penetrated a day's journey beyond the Euphrates or into Asia Minor, or touched the continent of Europe, but Herodotos wrote that he saw images of Sesostris carved in stone in Ionia: [3] The kings of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth dynasties were the greatest conquerors that Egypt ever produced, and their records are clear on this point. Senusret III raided south Canaan and Ethiopia, and at Semna above the second cataract set up a stela of conquest that in its expressions recalls the stelae of Sesostris in Herodotus: Sesostris may, therefore, be the highly magnified portrait of this Pharaoh.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "For it is plain to see that the Colchians are Egyptians; and what I say, I myself noted before I heard it from others." Herodotus 2.104
- ^ Silverman, David P. Ancient Egypt Oxford University Press (5 Jun 2003) ISBN: 978-0195219524 p. 29
- ^ "Most of the memorial pillars which King Sesostris erected in conquered countries have disappeared, but I have seen some myself in Palestine with the inscription I mentioned and the drawing of a woman's genitals. In Ionia also there are two images of Sesostris cut on rock, one on the road from Ephesos to Phocaea, the other between Sardis and Smyrna; in each case the carved figure is nearly seven feet high and represents a man with a spear in his right hand and a bow in his left, and the rest of his equipment to match - partly Egyptian partly Ethiopian." Herodotus II.106
[edit] Bibliography
- Herodotus ii. 102-1ll
- Diodorus Siculus i. 53-59
- Strabo xv. p. 687
- Kurt Sette, "Sesostris," in Unters. z. Gesch. u. Altertumskunde Agyptens, tome ii. Hinrichs, Leipzig (1900).
[edit] External links
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
